NotSandcastles
by blueandblack
Summary: It had been two days since Jacob had kissed Bella. It had been two days since Bella had kissed him back... New Moon AU. Sort of... weird. And hopefully somewhat entertaining.


It had been two days since Jacob had kissed Bella.

It had been two days since Bella had kissed him back.

It had been two days since they had wound up on the bristled carpet of Charlie Swan's living room floor, entirely, liquidly _fused_, his hands pressing against secret patches of her skin, hers against all too public stretches of his, lips stripping into each other in patterns that were close and thick and perfect, they were fused together and moving constantly, unconsciously, with the kind of natural grace that Bella hadn't thought she had in her.

It had been two days and Jacob was shy.

Every time he thought about kissing her again, he began to wonder exactly how it had worked so well the first time - _It went off without a hitch,_ he 'd think, and he would analyze and dissect and plan and _panic_ and let Bella smile, duck away, swing his hand between them like they were children.

Jacob was shy and he was frustrated, in such even proportions that each seemed to cancel out any action the other might have led him to take.

He was shy and he was frustrated and he was beginning to wonder if those few _fucking amazing_ minutes on the floor were all he was ever going to get.

_Bella_ was...

Bella didn't know what she was.

Bella didn't think about it.

Bella swung Jacob's hand between them, smiled, talked a lot more than usual.

-----

Two days.

It had been two days, and now it was a Friday afternoon in La Push and Bella had been up all night writing a paper she'd somehow - _impossibly,_ she'd said crossly - forgotten was due.

(She didn't mention that she had barely slept at all the night before that either.)

She was entirely sleep-deprived. She was red-eyed, yawning and slothful. She was, as she put it "a useless lump".

But she didn't want to go home - each shake of the keys to the rabbit was met with a low, whining sound, with a huffing readjustment of her limbs on the couch.

(Jacob was on the floor in front of her. She'd tried to feel bad about it, but in the end she'd decided that even on his own he was too huge for such a teeny couch, and really, why should they both suffer? She'd said as much, and once he'd put her through a solid mock guilt-trip - _Geez, Bells, sorry to take up so much of your precious space_ - Jacob had agreed, sat down in front of her, rested his head against her arm.)

She fell asleep halfway through a sentence that had been going nowhere anyway, and Jacob smiled, stroked her hair, breathed quickly and as quietly as he could manage.

It wasn't quiet enough, or maybe his hand shook too much each time it collided softly with the side of her face.

Bella opened one eye, the one that wasn't pressed against the thin velour upholstery, muttered "Your couch bites."

Jacob chuckled. "Tell me about it."

"I will," Bella mumbled, her eye slipping closed again, "I'll tell you allllll..."

Jacob threaded his fingers through her limp ones. "Hey honey, before you pass out on me again, are you sure you don't want me to just take you home?"

The eye didn't open, but the whining sound gave him his answer, loud and clear.

Jacob grinned, thought to himself _She never wants to go home. She never wants to leave here._ and for a moment he was neither frustrated nor shy, he was entirely happy, entirely ready to make _Bella_ happy whether she damn well liked it or not and Bella... was asleep.  
He was still grinning when he shook his head, leaned down and scooped her up.

"Huh? What did you... What are doing?" Bella asked, tacked on an unnecessary "What are you... hm..."

"My couch bites, remember?" Jacob whispered.

-----

Jacob's bed most definitely did not bite. In fact, Bella's sleepy but very astute mind concluded quickly that it was the best thing her body had ever come into contact with, and her lips, equally sleepy and a little less clever, let a breathy moan get the better of them.

Jacob was still touching her at the time, and the vibration trickled into his skin like hot syrup.

He exhaled.

He wished Bella wasn't asleep. He was glad Bella was asleep.

Except she wasn't, not exactly, and when he slid his hands out from under her she reached out, wrapped her fingers round his wrist and said "Stay."

Jacob didn't say anything. He didn't really know what to say. In the silence Bella made the very great effort to open her eyes, focus them on his, smile and say "I mean unless you're busy. Or it's boring. It's boring... sorry."

"It's okay," Jacob said hesitantly - _Shyly,_ he thought, with a twinge of self-loathing. "I can like... read a book."

Bella's eyes were closed again when she nodded, said "Books are awesome."

She didn't see him climb onto the bed beside her empty-handed.

-----

A few minutes passed in which Bella's body eased itself little by little into Jacob's arms, in which Jacob worked on keeping his breathing slow and regular.

He was just getting the hang of it when Bella started making strange noises, when her cheek started twitching against his shoulder.

"Nn gnn Iduh I... _Alice._"

It was as though the name pulled the sounds together, suddenly she was talking, rapidly, and in sentences that were full, that were overflowing really, she was talking and crying and Jacob's skin was wet, his heart was pounding.

"You didn't use flash. Why didn't you use flash? I can't see you I can't see any of you and you promised. You said it'd be pretty, we'd all be pretty in the picture, that's what you said Alice, why didn't you use - "

"Hey, hey honey, _hey._"

Jacob shook Bella awake and she opened tear-filled eyes, mumbled "What?"

He smiled, pressed his thumbs to her cheeks. "You were having a nightmare, I guess."

"Oh." She winced, closed her eyes and bit back a sob. "It was my birthday."

"Pretty crappy birthday," Jacob said softly.

"Yeah, it was..." Bella looked up at him, her face careful. "It was my last birthday, with the Cullens."

"I figured. You were talking about them a little."

She groaned. "Seriously? Ugh. Don't tell me what I said, I don't wanna know."

Jacob chuckled and was busy reassuring her that she hadn't said anything embarrassing when she cut in with "You would have liked them, you know."

He blinked. "Who?"

"The Cullens."

Jacob couldn't quite help the rise in his brow, the slight downward turn of his mouth.

Bella rolled her eyes, coughed a little, sniffled. "I only meant if they weren't vampires and you weren't a werewolf. If all that crap was off the table..." Her voice was small when she finished with "... I bet you would have been friends."

It took everything in Jacob to say softly "Maybe," everything and more to ask "What were they like?"

"They were nice. They were really nice. And amazing. But also... ordinary, in a weird way. Normal. You would have liked them," she repeated sleepily, "Well... maybe not Rosalie. She kind of makes Leah look warm and fuzzy. But..." - she yawned - "you would have been friends with Emmett, for sure."

"Maybe," Jacob said again, bit his tongue after it.

"For _sure,_" Bella insisted, and if her eyes hadn't been closed she might have rolled them again. "He's like... their Quil."

"I wouldn't be telling Quil that if you know what's good for you," Jacob muttered.

"Ugh, _whatever,_" Bella said, opening her eyes and kicking his shin lightly. She looked up at him, an exhausted-yet-indignant expression on her face, said "_You're_ just like Alice."

Jacob pulled back slightly, his brow entirely furrowed, his mouth entirely open. "Let me get this straight," he said, "Alice was the pint-sized, female fortune-teller with the shopping addiction?"

Bella sighed. "So literal." She sniffed, pressed her face into Jake's arm, said very quietly, "You're just like her because she was my best friend."

Jacob's cheek twitched, his fingers pressed into the mattress.

Maybe he should have been touched by what she'd said. Maybe he should have felt _special._

He didn't. He wasn't. He was pissed off. He was hurt. And for a couple of seconds he thought about saying something like 'Did you roll around on the floor making out with her too?'

He found he wasn't shy right now and he was _very_ frustrated. He could say it, he could absolutely...

But there were still small, occasional tears leaving Bella's eyes, and even if there were things he wanted from her so, _so_ badly, he didn't want to be a complete shit about it.

And she was already falling asleep again anyway.

Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks, her lips parted slightly.

Jacob's left hand made a fist.

He sighed, rested his head against the wall - Bella rested hers against him - and after a few minutes of watching her sleep soundly, he sort of wished he'd gone and gotten a book after all.

-----

"I swear, it's like the seventies down there. That's why she always wears the boy shorts instead of actual bikini bottoms."

"Or she just thinks the tomboy thing will make her less fucking boring."

"Well that will never happen."

"Miss Fucking Boring USA."

"I bet she's a boring _fuck_, too. Shall we ask - "

It was hot, scorchingly so, it was a pure Phoenix day and I was swathed in sunshine.

I was happy.

I was home.

I was sitting on First Beach with Angela Weber and she couldn't hear what Rosalie and Leah were saying about her, but I knew, of course, inevitably, inexplicably, I knew.

_Bitches,_ I thought, with a slow, fond smile.

Angela was telling me about her latest mixed multimedia venture, something amazing about empty spaces and the absence of light.

"You're not boring," I assured her.

She laughed. "I know."

It was nice that Angela was here. We were friends, I think. Real friends. The kind who swap pages from their journals and keep each other company on field trips.

And it was nice that Julie was here.

Julie Collier, from the second grade. She'd been my real friend before she went to Canada, before the letters stopped and I stopped asking Mommy for plane tickets.

Funny, she was still seven.

And she was causing Alice trouble.

"Julie!" she hissed, hands on hips, "We're building a city. A _utopia._ It's New York and Paris and that spiky opera house in Sydney all right there in the sand. Now stop _jumping_ on it!"

She waved to me, and I could see that she wasn't really angry. I could see that the city would be built and Julie would stop jumping on it and Alice...

I could see that she...

I could see Alice.

I turned slowly, and saw my bitches bickering. Rosalie was pale and resplendent and entirely without sparkles.

So was Alice.

"Huh, that's weird," I said to Angela.

She just shrugged.

Emmett appeared at that moment, out of the water, and he was as broad and as light as Jacob was broad and dark.

They'd been surfing, maybe (the kind without boards) and Jacob was wet...

"Jacob Black! Stop raining on the Sydney Opera House!"

Jacob peered downward. "The Sydney Opera House? Looks more like a sandcastle to me, little girl."

Alice's eyes narrowed, her hands found their way to her hips.

Jacob smirked, shook the droplets out of his long hair.

_Long. Long and black and beautiful._

"Okay, not a sandcastle. More of a splat, really."

Alice launched herself at him with quick and surprisingly - _surprisingly?_ - effective punches, and he puffed out laughter, grabbed at her hands.

"Emmett! Get her feet! I dunno if I can take her on my own."

Emmett grinned, swooped down and grabbed Alice's feet, and together they stepped into the soft waves, back and back, swaying her all the way while she squealed about her beachwear.

"Help! It's La Perla! _Rose!_"

Matching snickers echoed to my left.

"Jasper! Save me! _Jasperrrr!_"

Jasper spoke low to my right and I realized he'd been sitting quietly on the other side of Angela this whole time. He'd been staring at a small wad of paper, writing some and biting his lip.

"I think I left my white horse tethered down the road." He smiled to himself, scribbled the words down, added absently "You might have to fend for yourself."

It was too late anyway. Emmett and Jacob had dropped her into the water on the count of three, and she was coming up for air, laughing with a scowl on her face.

When she crawled to the shore she sighed, stood, looked down at herself and winced, fell down to the sand again and crawled up to Jasper.

He was further away now. They were further away and nobody heard it when she said "My poor _sarong._"

They were further away and nobody heard it when Jasper replied "Aw, darlin', but you can't come to the beach and not expect to get _wet._"

He looked up, and Alice's eyelids dipped as she closed the gap between them slowly, slowly slipped her lip between his.

I couldn't see. The sun was a brilliant glare around their bodies.

I didn't see it and I didn't hear it and it was beautiful.

They were close again when I looked, and Angela was poring over Jasper's papers.

"Hey where are your parents?" I asked Alice.

"At home." She smiled happily, nodded toward her not-sandcastle. "Esme's busy with the blueprints for Utopia."

Jasper turned, leaned back, looked my way. "And Carlisle is mopping her sweated brow."

"And saving lives," Alice amended.

Somewhere behind me Emmett hollered "Daddy C is in the house - "

" - mother_fuckers!_ Savin' liiiiiives," Quil finished for him with a high, flung hand gesture I didn't see.

I didn't really know what that was about exactly, but I laughed because they did it a lot. The two of them... they did that all the time.

It was... weird.

Angela nodded, shrugged, said "I know", added that Mike Newton really didn't hate me and last night he'd stood outside Jessica Stanley's window with a boom box over his head.

That was nice. And it was nice when Embry appeared, crouched before me briefly with the kind of smile you could trust and said "Hey Bella, I know I'm not as funny as Quil, but if you took the time to get to know me you'd like me even better."

Then there was food, because everyone is full-stomached in Utopia, and because Emily had brought it - ridiculous quantities of ridiculously good food all in her slender arms and now laid out before us on plaid rugs.

"Thank you, Emily," I said.

She smiled. "Your mom helped. She cracked the eggs by dropping them and called it performance art."

We ate and when I asked her where Sam was she glanced to our left, a flicker of something less-than-perfect tearing across her absolutely perfect face.

"He's still working on getting that big stone up the hill," she whispered. She shook her head quickly. "It takes him all day and then it'll be the same again tomorrow. And they don't pay him nearly enough."

Angela told her not to worry. She said Ben was outraged and was lobbying the government about it. That's why he couldn't come to the beach.

I told her not to worry too - Charlie had friends in high places, and he and Billy Black thought the world of Ben and his lobbying.

Emily smiled, glanced to our left again, frowned, and it was later.

And then it wasn't.

The sun dipped and brightened like firelight, like trains passing through sharp tunnels, and I wasn't sure where they were taking me, I wasn't sure where we were going.

I was worried.

I was afraid.

It was weird, but Angela didn't know it, she didn't shrug or nod her head, Angela wasn't here anymore and I was _afraid._

_But soft..._

Jacob appeared. A reprieve. The clouds opened, light spilled out, and he sat beside me and said I was beautiful.

I blushed, and he spurred it on with "Cutest girl here," leaned across and nodded at Alice, "Sorry, pixie. You know I love you too."

"It's alright," Alice said brightly. "I know Bella's the cutest. Haven't I always said you're the cutest, Bella?"

I blushed again, whispered "Yes you have. I love you so much."

Jacob nudged me, demanded to know why Alice was getting all the sugar when he'd said it first.

I smiled, laughed, smiled again, crept my arms up around his neck and whispered "I love you so much too" into his lips.

It was later again. Immediately it was much later.

The sky was pitch black and the water raged.

And the sun... the sun was still there... the sun was still there, it _was_, but it was later and blacker and I turned to Alice, reached for her and found she was right in front of my face.

_"What the hell are you doing?"_ she snarled.

"I... _What?_"

I tipped, clung to Jacob's thigh beside me. The waves were fire again.

Alice's eyes flashed like lightening, wide and golden. "You ask about _Carlisle and Esme._ You're _sunshine and puppydogs_ with _everyone_ and you don't even notice that the love of your life isn't _here._"

"I..."

I tried to swallow. The sea bubbled up instead.

"You didn't even _ask me,_ Bella. And then you're kissing this... this..." Her eyes turned viciously on Jacob and he wasn't saying a word. He wasn't saying a word and my fist was full of sand. "... this _boy._"

I shook my head, shuddered. "But you know, Alice. I told you we were together. I told you I love - "

"You don't even care that you're _killing him._"

And with that she was gone too.

Everyone was gone.

Utopia was empty except for me and...

_"Edward?"_

The sun was out again. It was pure Phoenix, pure first beach.

Edward was standing with his arms outstretched and he was burning, he was _on fire_, and I screamed _"No!_ That's not how it works! That's a myth! _That's not how it - _"

-----

That wasn't the line Bella was repeating in her sleep, and still, blearily, unawares as she woke to Jacob's arms tightening around her, his mouth at her hair and _Shh, shh..._

She was in floods of tears, she still hadn't quite blinked the final scene away, and yet... somehow her lips were stuck at "I love you so much too", and Jacob wasn't sure whether it was the wracking sobs or those words that he was trying to shh into oblivion.

It hurt so fucking much. To see her in pain, of course. And then... to hear her telling a dream what he so badly wanted to hear for himself,_ about_ himself, _to_ himself.

To himself, from her.

It had been two days and... a few hours and a few minutes and who knew how many seconds and who cared. In that moment, Jacob felt like two days was too much, like all the things he felt about this were too much, and he pressed his cheek quickly against Bella's, hoped the stray tears would hide with hers.

He was just starting to get ahold of himself again and he had thought Bella was too, when she started saying it again.

"I love you so much."

Jacob stifled a groan, pulled back and covered his eyes with his palm.

Bella pulled back -_ forward_ - with him and peeled his palm away.

She kissed it. And then she kissed his cheek, and then his bottom lip, then the top and by the time she'd teased his lips apart Jacob's mind had formed a question.

"Bells..." It poured straight into her, mouth-to-mouth, "Did you mean... I mean... were you talking to _me_?"

Bella smiled, ran her nose along his jaw, squeezed her hands tight at his shoulders, mumbled "Of course, silly, _of course_ you." She drew back slightly, stared into his eyes that were dark and unblinking and entirely in awe, said softly "Look around. Who else would I be talking to?"

She started kissing him again before he could answer a question that didn't need answering.

He started kissing her back before she could change her mind.

(She wouldn't have.)

Jacob was not frustrated. Jacob was not shy. He pulled Bella on top of him and they were entirely, liquidly _fused..._

Bella thought she might have been a little afraid, when his hand traveled her thigh entirely, when his fingertips slid under the waistband of her sweats, when at precisely the same moment, he pressed his cheek to her breast, when at precisely the same moment he breathed "My Bella..."

Bella thought she might have been a little afraid.

But she reminded herself that this was Jacob, that Jacob - _her_ Jacob - was _here_, he _was_, and she was alright. Bella knew in that moment that everything would be alright. That Alice wasn't angry with her, that Edward wasn't turning to ash...

And yet still, there was pain. There were too many memories living within her, too many harsh realities too alive without.

This wasn't Utopia. This wasn't a world that Bella could fit everything and everyone into...

But there was room enough for love, she decided.

There was room enough for _this._

For all the space the boy took up, Bella found there was room enough for Jacob Black in her heart.


End file.
